


Stay

by shittershutter



Category: Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 11:27:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18659515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shittershutter/pseuds/shittershutter
Summary: Pope washes the blood from under his nails in the airport bathroom, shaves, slicks his hair back with his wet hands to give it some semblance of presentability. It's not like Will would care, not like he hasn't kissed the dirt, the gunpowder, and the strangers' blood off his lips before.





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm in love with these two.

Pope washes the blood from under his nails in the airport bathroom, shaves, slicks his hair back with his wet hands to give it some semblance of presentability. It's not like Will would care, not like he hasn't kissed the dirt, the gunpowder, and the strangers' blood off his lips before. 

Still, Pope doesn't want to bring the war to the man's doorstep. Doesn't dare to tread among the buddhas and ganeshas that stare at him from the shelves and the tables with bullets clinking in his pockets. 

He comes to see Will as a man, not a soldier and makes love to Will out of necessity, out of instinct to balance the horrors and the death of his regular job with this beautiful, fragile act. He calls it love in his head and is not brave enough to say the word out loud. It's always on his tongue though and it feels like at least Will can taste it as he slides his own tongue against his.

Will feels different under his hands today. At first, he attributes it to being apart for months and months, to sharing his squeaky bed with countless others until they blur into one ephemeral experience he can't get a grasp on. Will is decidedly not that. Pope can never pretend he's not there. 

Will straddles his thighs with his back to his chest and it's not how, it's not what they are. Not how Pope remembers them to be every time he hides in the bathroom to jerk himself off with a punishing intensity while his newest partner for the night is left to sleep in the cooling bed.

Will rides him like a bull, strong, demanding in his constant movement. The breath that travels under his ribs leaves the lips with the same dry hiss like it's not the desperate fucking they're engaged in, like it's a meditation of sorts. 

But he won't turn his head to kiss Pope on the mouth and he's tense. It's in his hand, thrown back, digging into Pope's hair, in his quivering belly, in his thighs -- this slight edge, the tremor that the other man doesn't recognize. 

It makes his heart ache. He can't quite address it, not when Will slides up his dick until only the head is still inside teasing the separation, then slams down, merciless on his bones and his muscles. What he can do is to suck on the skin at the back of Will's neck, breathing his hair in, to distract himself.

He reaches his hand down between them, touches the edges of the man's hole, slick and relaxed as it takes him in, then almost pushes him out. Touches his balls, heavy and ready to burst, the hard length of his cock to convince himself without asking that Will wants him there.

Will smacks his hand away as he usually does, his hissing breath almost a grumble this time and the familiarity of it makes Pope smile through the sting in his dry lips. He's immediately reminded he hasn't been kissed since he first got his pants off.

He goes for it, but like a well-oiled cog, Will moves away, digging his elbows into the mattress. His hips never break the measured pace and he's beautiful with his head down and his back arched. There is an extreme vulnerability in the sight in front of him -- and it has always fried Pope's brain how trusting, how defenseless Will would get for him only. But there is also more distance. 

Pope stares at the pale ass bouncing in his lap, at himself moving in and out, then runs his hand along Will's spine. Chases the measured breath on its way out and once he hears it leaving the body, he can't take it anymore. 

He takes the man by the hipbones and moves up until they both are kneeling properly. The pain in his knees is blinding, he's so fucking paying for the position of choice tomorrow, but the pain in his heart balances it out somewhat. 

He presses his chest against Will's back, forehead against his shoulder, and snakes both hands around the man to physically stop him from moving. 

Will does stop, they both do, although it takes some time for their hips to stop their well-practiced dance. They stay locked, unmoving for a while and Pope is poking his overheated brain for the words to come up.

"Did I do something wrong?" he finally manages. It takes all the air from his lungs to say that.

He relaxes his grip around the man's ribs, starts to stroke his sides instead with conviction he doesn't feel. They are pressed so close together they share the heartbeat yet there is the distance between that wasn't there before. Pope is confused. Tired, hurt, hard to the point of exploding and so, so confused. 

Benny gets shitfaced once and tells him in a tone he'll apologize for later -- for the tone alone, mind you, not the actual words -- that maybe it's time for him to let Will go. "He needs someone to take care of him and this... this decades-long adventure you two are engaged in is not cutting it," he says. "Your ominous fucking presence has scared off every decent dude he's ever come across." 

Will is not there for the conversation, he's unconscious at the hospital across the street with the metal plate in his skull acting up. He collapses on the street the day before and it's a major scare, the one that makes Pope run to his bedside from across the world. The one that makes Benny stay awake for 24 hours straight. 

He swallows Benny's outburst back then and goes to hold Will's hand through the night and in his head, he promises to all the beeping machines that if there is ever a man for him to stop, to put his gun down for, Will's the one. 

Will in the present, under him, clears his throat, catches one of his restless hands and brings it to his mouth. 

"I really want to ask you to stay, Santiago," he slurs against it. It's almost indistinguishable so he doesn't catch it, not right away. Then he moves his hips slightly to remind Will he *is* staying, in fact, he's here in the most literal sense there can be.

Will spits out Pope's index finger he's been sucking on and turns his head slightly. "With me, I mean. Here, for good."

It all comes crashing down: the years of instability, blood, bullets, and Will as the only constant of his life. The chaos that was actually building up to something, leading him somewhere, leading him here. 

"Will you?" Pope coughs. He's suddenly dizzy and grateful for Will's solid body keeping them both upright, anchoring them. "Will you ask me?"

They both know that there is no abrupt stop in life for people like them, no off switch unless it's death or any other traumatic scenario that doesn't allow to even think about the future as a concept. 

"Next time," Will says. Firmly, calmly, in a tone Pope recognizes. 

"Promise?"

"Promise," Will pulls on his hand, the one he's been holding, bringing them closer, until their mouths touch. "Now fuck me before your balls fall off," he says against the other man's lips. He doesn't say anything else.

The tension just leaves as soon as the words get out, it leaks through the pores with the sweat until they become a limbless, squirming mass that shares the breath, the groans, the gasps and fights its way through the sheets to the climax that also is shared and belongs to them both. 

Will sleeps then with his face pressed against Pope's shoulder after, soft breaths tickling his skin, and the bed around them looks like a fucking volcano crater. Amidst the mess, they are peaceful and quiet. 

That hollow in Pope's chest that was vacated by the pain and the worry fills itself with love instead. "November," he thinks, checking the calendar in his phone. He'll put his duffel bag down on this floor to never pick it up again in November and face the fuzzy vision of the future they might have. And that's the realistic plan, the one he can work with.


End file.
